Multimedia Journalist

Affordability Crisis

Seattle is one of the fastest growing cities in America, and the new population is bringing unprecedented wealth from the technology industry. Housing is scarce, and low-wage workers continue to fight for better working conditions.

While the city has recently raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour, and created a comprehensive plan to build affordable housing, elected leaders continue with efforts to regulate worker schedules and allow rideshare drivers to collectively bargain.

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A Seattle company calculates the maximum profit potential for any property in the county, so developers can make offers on the land. But after I did the first story questioning whether this would make the rich richer, the CEO decided to allow the public to see, too:

Seattle had one of the nation’s first housing levies, a dedicated source of funding to build below-market housing for low-income residents. But this year, Mayor Ed Murray asked to renew it at an unprecedented level of $290 million:

Seattle is the most expensive place to live in Washington state, but its teachers are not the highest paid. In the midst of a teacher strike, I looked into why that’s happening:

Seattle’s mayor comes out against rent control:

In December, Seattle became the first city in the nation to allow drivers of Uber and Lyft to unionize:

Low-wage workers ask for reduced hours to be able to keep their subsidies for child care and rent: